The Ideal Marriage Proposals

Proposing to a loved one can be a particularly stressful moment, and for some it takes months of thinking and preparation. If you’re one of the lucky folks who managed to find a significant other and want to tie the knot, we may have some answers for your proposal-related dilemmas.

Lisa Hoplock, a researcher on love and relationship, conducted a small study about how people imagine the perfect marriage proposal, and how it was actually enacted by their partners. She asked the users of Science of Relationships, a website about love and dating, how and where their marriage proposal took place, and if that matched their expectations.

Asked whether they would have liked to be proposed in privacy or somewhere in public, 7 out of 10 people said the ideal setting for a marriage proposal is one where just the two partners are present. In fact, those who said they wished something went differently when they were proposed, mainly complained about other people assisting to the event. Only in rarer occasions people said they wished a more public marriage proposal.

When it comes to the perfect spot for a marriage proposal, the expectations don’t seem extremely exquisite. Most people listed the beach on top of their ideal locations for a marriage proposal. Aside from the beach, the most popular ideal locations to be asked the big question were at home, a restaurant, a walk/vacation spot abroad, and on the sixth place, a garden or the park.

The ideal proposal locations are actually pretty matched with those that people choose to pop the question to their beloved partners. According to the small survey on Science of Relationships, most people propose at home, followed by a location at the beach, a restaurant, and, at the bottom of the list, in the park.

Finally, the data on the site shows that about 4 out of 10 people ask for their partners’ parental approval before popping the question. Another interesting fact is that almost everyone who is about to ask their partner to marry them shares this piece of info with a friend or family member before proposing to their partner.

Public or intimate, and romantic or casual, marriage proposals are ultimately about settling down with the one you love. And the way people on the Science of Relationships described their perfect marriage proposal setting shows exactly that. Namely, one key idea that surfaces from this survey is that when it comes to marriage proposals, the setting doesn’t matter so much — as long as it’s to the right persons, we are ready to say “I do” regardless of where we are.